Photographer Ramona du Houx to exhibit at SugarWood Gallery

FARMINGTON - SugarWood Gallery “Artist of the Month” Ramona du Houx of Solon, will be feted at an Open House Reception on Friday, July 1 from 5 to 8 p.m. during Farmington’s First Friday Art Walk. The public is invited. Refreshments will be served.

du Houx creates fine art photography that looks like watercolor paintings evoking mystery and a sense of wonder. Some find them nostalgic and some mystical. Many have said the images have a healing nature.

“I try to bring the beauty, magic and mystery of nature to viewers by amplifying nature’s essence. Putting the images into categories was extremely challenging as everything is interconnected,” she said.

du Houx is currently represented by Gallery Storks of Tokyo, Japan, and is also a member of the Maine Artist Collaborative and the Harlow Gallery. Gallery Storks has produced an art book of Ramona’s art called: Transformations — Revealing Nature’s Complex Balance. Many of the photos on display are in the book.

“Scientists, innovators, and inventors throughout history took the time to observe nature and her connective rhythms. But now society plugs us into the Internet, and while that can open doors, sometimes too much of being Internet-connected disconnects us from the mysteries of the natural world that are transformational. I want to help show how nature’s interconnectedness can lead us to discoveries about our world and ourselves,” she said.

She uses the camera with a painter’s eye. The technique she discovered back in 1979, in New York, uses movement to create a sense of wonder through colors, textures, memories, and the seasons. Everything within the viewfinder becomes visibly interconnected when objects merge with the motion of the camera as the image, the “lightgraph,” is taken.

The photographic watercolor technique is always a challenge. “I never know exactly what the results will be, that’s the exciting part of the creation,” said Ramona.

Ramona’s love for photography continues to be a lifetime affair. At 12 she couldn’t be seen without a camera. By 18 she was teaching photography and industrial design at Collegio San Antonio Abad in Puerto Rico.

During college she worked with three New York City photographers. In 1979 she landed jobs to take political photographs of Sen. Ted Kennedy, and President Jimmy Carter. The same year she discovered her “lightgraph” technique and held her first exhibit in Huntington, Long Island. Excited by the new way of expressing herself she took her “lightgraph” images to the Museum of Modern Art, where they were put on file.

The Zen nature of her work became obvious to Ramona so she continued her studies in art, and philosophy in Kyoto, Japan while teaching. Her travels in the East led to numerous exhibits in Japan and a lifelong connection with the area.

In England and Ireland, she explored the mythology of the region, while raising three children, ghost writing a novel, and forever taking photographs. After returning stateside to Maine, she started a publishing company, Polar Bear & Company, with her husband and was hired as a consultant by a local artist. During this time she also explored more about the mysteries of motion in her lightgraph technique, and wrote for newspapers. By 1998 she was given access to a color darkroom at the Lewiston Creative Photographic Art Center to print a backlog of work in exchange for advising the Center’s photography students.

In 2005 Ramona started a newsmagazine, Maine Insights, which continues to this day. By 2012 she decided to show more of her fine art and has exhibited around the world.